The well-heeled suburban enclave of Grosse Pointe, just across the border from Detroit, is home to some of the best schools in Michigan, according to just about any measure you choose. Online raters like and have issued high grades to both the district as a whole and its high schools. The local places comfortably above the national average. And just in the last five years, separate elementary schools were selected for the prestigious National Blue Ribbon Schools program in 2016 and 2017.

Given the at Michigan鈥檚 education performance, one might think that demand for a seat in Grosse Pointe would make school closures unthinkable.

And yet, at the end of the 2018-19 school year, members of the local board Trombly Elementary School, located in the district鈥檚 south side, and Poupard Elementary School, at the northern end. The decision triggered a passionate if unsuccessful campaign to save the schools and a strikingly antagonistic school board race last November. But local education leaders say it was spurred by factors outside their control 鈥� there simply aren鈥檛 enough kids.

鈥淭his is a birth rate issue,鈥� said Gary Niehaus, Grosse Pointe鈥檚 outgoing superintendent. 鈥淚t’s not that everyone’s moving to a private school because we’re not doing a good job; you’re dealing with a human being that’s not been born. What you have in our district is 750 high school seniors leaving the district each year to go to college or trade school, and you’re entering in somewhere between 450 and 500 kindergarteners.鈥�

The phenomenon of fewer children being born, leading to gradually shrinking school enrollments, is not confined to Michigan. According to by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, total births in the United States fell 4 percent last year, reaching the lowest number since 1979. Between 2019 and 2020, fertility decreased for women across all racial and ethnic categories and in all age groups between 15 and 44. And while the disruptions of COVID-19 undoubtedly dissuaded some women from starting or expanding their families last year, the long-term decline has been in the works for well over a decade.

But in Michigan, the picture is further clouded by local education policy, which both grants families a huge degree of public school choice and mandates that funding follows students when they change schools. To cope with a smaller pool of total students, districts must attract as many pupils as possible to attend their traditional schools. Some succeed brilliantly, drawing families and funding from surrounding areas; those that can鈥檛 do the same see their head counts diminish.

And districts like Grosse Pointe are stuck in the middle: in clear need of more children to educate, but unwilling to accept the predominantly nonwhite and low-income pupils nearest to them.

David Arsen, a professor of educational administration at Michigan State University, argued that the era of collapsing enrollment need not precipitate a nationwide school funding crisis. If state K-12 education revenues remain the same, all else being equal, then lower fertility could lead to higher per-pupil expenditures. But when viewed from the perspective of individual districts, which build their budgets on total student numbers, a downturn in enrollment represents 鈥渁 powerful loss in revenue, just as increasing enrollment is beneficial.”

The example of the Grosse Pointe Public School System, which serves that collectively make up Grosse Pointe, is instructive: State data show that total K-12 enrollment has fallen by about 1,500 in less than a decade, capped by a huge reduction during the year of distance learning necessitated by COVID-19. Each student lost, or never enrolled, represents in education funding from the state that doesn鈥檛 reach the district.

鈥淭here’s a lot of uncertainty about it, and [districts] have to do what they can to try to keep enrollments up,鈥� Arsen said. 鈥淭his is a trend that’s sweeping through the national education system, but I think we’re ahead of the curve in Michigan. There’s competition for students by any means necessary because the money’s going to come with the kids.”

The Picture in Michigan

According to the CDC鈥檚 data, Michigan recorded just under 104,000 babies last year. That made it one of 25 states in which , when the pandemic resulted in massive loss of life. But the extended fertility decline reaches back far past the emergence of COVID, and the 2020 birth count is than it was in 1990.

Much of the change is linked to a local economy that stumbled through a 鈥溾�� over the first decade of the 21st century, during which from 18th in the nation to 38th. Given the relative softness of local industry 鈥� led by that historically acted like a regional magnet for labor 鈥� the state has tended to draw fewer young workers who might eventually start families. Consequently, Michigan where native-born residents make up the largest share of the population.

Career data analyst Kurt Metzger has a unique perspective on the problem as both an observer and policy maker. A longtime student of population flows in Michigan, he helped establish the influential research group , then left in 2013 after being elected mayor of Pleasant Ridge, a Motor City suburb of about 2,500. In an interview, he lamented that the state had failed to attract more transplants and was of losing a congressional seat.

鈥淲e lose a lot of young people, and we’re not very good at attracting young people,鈥� Metzger said. 鈥淪o our state continues to age, and we’re not adding a large number of people in their child-bearing years. And if you combine that with the economic outlook, people delaying marriage, having fewer children 鈥� it kind of compounds in Michigan.”

The effect on school attendance is undeniable. Between 2003 and 2018, statewide school enrollment . A from local site MLive put the dropoff in even starker terms: Amazingly, in the period between 2009 and 2019, 78 different districts in Michigan 鈥� roughly 15 percent of the state鈥檚 537 total districts 鈥� lost more than one-quarter of their students. Overall, three-quarters of all school districts had seen student losses of some magnitude.

COVID-19 has clearly hastened the process already underway. According to , there were about 40,000 fewer students across all of Michigan鈥檚 K-12 grades in the 2019-20 school year than in 2015-16. But in the fall of 2020 alone, schools took in than the year before. A healthy percentage of the missing are incoming kindergartners whose parents will likely place them in public schools after an extra year of seasoning at home. But according to Ben DeGrow, director of education policy at Michigan鈥檚 right-leaning Mackinac Center, some may never find their way back into public school classrooms.

鈥淚 think that not all those students are lost from the public school system, but a significant number of them are gone permanently,鈥� he said. 鈥淲hich probably just slightly accelerates all these decisions about closures and consolidations. And the reckoning will come due in a few years.”

Metzger has seen the trend play out personally. Pleasant Ridge sends its own K-12 students to attend the neighboring Ferndale school district, which opted to to developers a few years ago. He argued that while the resulting merger had its limitations, it was a necessary acknowledgment of the under-filled classrooms that predominate in many of the state鈥檚 schools.

鈥淲e just have too damn many schools, too many school districts, too many administrators, and it makes no sense. I don’t see how the product we’re delivering can possibly improve, [given] the way we operate a K-12 system in this state.”

A 鈥榮piral of decline鈥�

But shifts in demography alone do not explain the situation in Michigan. Along with a shrinking number of potential students, some districts are also losing out against competitors.

Two of the most important features of the local education policy landscape relate to school choice. One is the state鈥檚 , which enrolls roughly 150,000 students statewide. The other is the ambitious , an inter-district enrollment protocol that allows students to leave their own school system to fill openings in participating districts. Between the two, about one out of every four public K-12 students in Michigan attend a school outside their residential district.

That means that struggling school districts 鈥� often those enrolling high percentages of low-income students and students of color 鈥� see their head counts dwindle as families enroll their children in neighboring cities and towns. Major urban centers like Detroit and Flint, practically national bywords for underperforming schools and failed public sectors generally, have been among .

Another is Benton Harbor. An overwhelmingly African American community nestled on the shores of Lake Michigan, the city鈥檚 schools have long posted some of the worst academic results in the state. Rampant financial , by a former superintendent, made matters even worse. With students rushing to the exits and money flowing out with them, the district found itself over $18 million in debt in 2019. At that point, newly elected Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to shutter its only high school or even dissolve the school system entirely. A beat back the closure discussion, but education leaders are still working overtime to fill local classrooms.

Superintendent Andra茅 Townsel, appointed to the job just last year, said he was doing everything he could to 鈥渆arn back鈥� the approximately 3,000 students who live within the district but choose not to attend traditional schools. But Benton Harbor was locked in an 鈥渆xtremely competitive鈥� hunt for an ever-smaller number of young people, he said, and the financial impact of the displacement was damaging.

“Less students, less money,鈥� he said. 鈥淎cross the country, every student is worth a certain amount that you get to educate them, and if you don’t have them, you don’t get it.”

Arsen said that the inter-district exodus of students flows 鈥渙verwhelmingly [to districts] up higher on the socioeconomic totem pole.鈥� Many migrate into new schools that are whiter, higher-income, and higher-performing academically than their home districts. The winners are able to compensate for the children who aren鈥檛 being born, but the losers are caught in a vicious cycle: Poor educational results leading to departing students, which in turn lead to less funding from Lansing.

鈥淭his feature of inter-district choice policy has helped stabilize enrollment and funding in some of Michigan’s communities,鈥� said Arsen. 鈥淥f course, it’s a strategy that [appeals] more to advantaged districts, and it only aggravates the pain of the less advantaged districts. It sends them into a spiral of decline.”

The vast majority of Michigan districts participate in Schools of Choice. A notable exception is Grosse Pointe. Even as in-district birth rates have sagged and high property values make it difficult for young families to afford to move there, the board of education has refused to open its schools to children from nearby Detroit, where the student population during the 2020-21 academic year was nonwhite. When several proposals for right-sizing the district were first presented in a January 2019 board meeting, including closures and grade reconfigurations, that a move toward inter-district enrollment was a non-starter. In this, officials were responding to the views of their electorate; according to , 70 percent of Grosse Pointe residents support the district鈥檚 position of not taking part in Schools of Choice.

Amanda Matheson, the district鈥檚 deputy superintendent for business services, said that the towering reputation of Grosse Pointe schools meant that it would have no difficulty enrolling commuter students if it chose to.

“If we wanted to keep those buildings open, we could have easily opened to Schools of Choice, and I can guarantee, based on the surrounding districts, that we would have been able to fill every single open seat we have,鈥� she said. 鈥淏ut absent opening for Schools of Choice, our natural population for the kids who live within our boundaries is declining: lower birth rates, compared with the graduating senior class. And it’s true across the state.”

A relatively new arrival to the area, Matheson has previously worked in other Michigan districts that gladly welcomed inter-district transfers as a means of propping up enrollment. Initially, she said, she was surprised that local education leaders would leave such a potent tool on the shelf when the alternative meant closing their own elementary schools. But she added that the reluctance to open the district barriers reflected something of 鈥渢he culture we have here.鈥�

鈥淵ou can’t pick and choose who you let in and how long you let them in for,鈥� she said. 鈥淥nce you admit them, they’re your students.鈥�

“It would get me fired in a heartbeat” 鈥擲uperintendent Gary Niehaus, asked whether he鈥檇 advocate opening Grosse Pointe schools to students from Detroit.

Pleasant Ridge鈥檚 Metzger said that education leaders in southeast Michigan 鈥� the home to much of the state鈥檚 population and industry, with the suburban layer of metropolitan Detroit diverse even as the city ranks as in the country 鈥� are facing the conundrum of protecting their bottom lines without alienating families.

鈥淒istrict parents start saying, ‘The school quality is going down, there’s fights in the school,鈥欌�� he said. 鈥淓verybody comes up with their own code words, and the district has to fight that too..”

Superintendent Niehaus, who that he would retire at the end of the 2020-21 school year, also characterized Schools of Choice as a kind of third rail in local discussions, adding that the board would not adopt the policy even if he declared that 鈥渋t was the greatest thing that could happen to us.鈥� Asked whether he would make such a recommendation, Niehaus was equally adamant: “Not whatsoever, no. It would get me fired in a heartbeat.”

鈥楶eople would rather welcome the fish鈥�

The sharp division between Grosse Pointe and Detroit did not arise overnight. Fierce debates over school assignment at least to the 1974 Supreme Court decision in Milliken v. Bradley, which held that 53 mostly white districts outside of Detroit 鈥� including Grosse Pointe 鈥� did not have to participate in inter-district busing unless their borders were clearly drawn with discriminatory intent.

The line between the communities is still among the most economically and racially segregated in the United States, according to by the nonprofit group EdBuild. In recent years, Grosse Pointe has erected on its border with Detroit. It has also vigilantly enforced habitation rules for enrollment in public schools, with families multiple documents proving that they live within district boundaries. For years, allowed suspicious residents to report students they believed to be receiving a Grosse Pointe education from outside the district. Some years, were received.

Renee Jakubowski, a mother of three children who recently attended the now-defunct Trombly Elementary School, said that an air of distrust prevailed in some parts of the district, largely because of a 鈥渧ocal minority鈥� of people who suspect that low-income and non-white students couldn鈥檛 possibly live in Grosse Pointe.

鈥淥ur residency requirements 鈥� the hoops you have to jump through are tedious, to say the least,鈥� she said. 鈥淚f your kid goes from elementary to middle school, you’ve got to reaffirm [your address]. I just find it a shame. Kids are kids, they all need education.鈥�

The anguished racial politics made decisions over school consolidation even more challenging. that Poupard Elementary, which served about 300 mostly African American and low-income students, was targeted for closure in spite of being the district鈥檚 only Title I school. Families connected to Trombly showed their discontent by along the busy road that their children would have to cross in order to reach the next-closest elementary school.

A representative of the Michigan Civil Rights Commission to be more mindful of of racist and restrictive housing policies. In an interview with 蜜桃影视, Cynthia Douglas, president of the Grosse Pointe branch of the NAACP, agreed that the public outreach process was 鈥渇lawed.鈥�

鈥淥n the financial side of it, we understood why they had to close the schools, why this had to be done,鈥� she said. 鈥淏ut it disenfranchised a group of people, and the outcome of that and the atmosphere around the whole situation was not very favorable.鈥�

Things got uglier when the decision was finalized, with an unsuccessful recall campaign launched against three school board members. Within six months, the president of the board , complaining of the harsh treatment he and his family received in the wake of the closure decision. Political tactics and tone became so hostile in last year鈥檚 board elections that the body one of its own members for working with a 501(c)(4) organization to malign district employees during the campaign. Deputy Superintendent Matheson, who had not joined the district when the closures were decided, said that the public backlash throughout 2020 was 鈥渧ery reflective of discontent with the decisions made鈥� the years before.

鈥淵ou could change curriculum, buy new textbooks, and you don’t have anybody show up [to meetings] when those items are on the agenda,鈥� Matheson said. 鈥淏ut when you’re talking about school closures, it certainly brings out a lot of people, and it’s often very emotionally based because it is their school. It triggers emotions that people probably didn’t even know that they had, and concerns about how their kids will integrate with kids at other schools.”

The elections ultimately elected several members who expressly wanted to reopen Trombly and Poupard, to make a majority on the seven-member board. The two schools remained closed even as the pandemic led Grosse Pointe to abruptly embrace social distancing in schools. Jakubowski, who helped lead protests against the shuttering of Trombly, said she was resigned to the finality of its closure.

She held out even less hope that Grosse Pointe would open its schools to children from outside the community.

鈥淚 don’t see it happening in my lifetime. We’d have to have an enormous turnover in the community before that would be considered. We’re bordered on one side by Detroit, and the other side is the lake; people would rather welcome the fish.鈥�

Lead art by Meghan Gallagher (Photos from Getty Images and Renee Jakubowski)

After more than a century, the end came swiftly for Hallsville Elementary School.

The smallest school in Manchester, New Hampshire, enrolling around 260 children from kindergarten to fifth grade, is also the oldest continually operating facility in the school district. First opened in 1891, it now requires millions of dollars in renovations and, like several schools across the city, is under-enrolled. In December, a consulting group studying Manchester鈥檚 school capacity and utilization recommended shuttering four elementary schools as a way of cutting costs and operating more efficiently. A few months later, the local board approved just one for closure: Hallsville.

鈥淚t was a proposal in the middle of the school year, and then, next thing you know, it was happening,鈥� said Tina Krajewski, who has sent two children to Hallsville. 鈥淟ooking back at it, it’s just insane to know that it’s going to be gone. It breaks my heart.鈥�

Long before the emergence of COVID-19, schools around the United States were experiencing an erosion in their enrollment numbers. Our nationwide K-12 enrollment, roughly 55 million kids, remains one of the largest in the world. But birth rates have slipped ever since the Great Recession, first abruptly, then persistently. When the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on population growth in May, few experts were surprised to see that total births had fallen to their lowest number since 1979. Over 700,000 in 2020 than in 2007, the year the financial crisis began, even though there are now significantly more women in their child-bearing years.

Fertility rates , from the comparative peaks in the Dakotas to . New Hampshire, with 48.2 births per 1,000 women aged 15-44, ranks above only its Green Mountain neighbor in general fertility. If not for the impressive influx of migrants from other states, by its natural beauty and high quality of life, New Hampshire鈥檚 population shrinking. And fewer children means fewer students; Manchester, the state鈥檚 economic capital and largest school district by far, has lost more than one-fifth of its enrollment over the last decade.

With no rebound in sight 鈥� the pandemic has clearly suppressed family formation 鈥� what鈥檚 already happened there may well be coming to a school near you.

The nationwide slowdown in natural population growth isn鈥檛 limited to a few regions or segments of society. Though researchers have of births decreasing among younger women and rising somewhat for their older counterparts, fertility sank this year for all age ranges between 15 and 44 (including record lows for those between ages 20 and 29). Women in all racial and ethnic categories are having fewer children, but recent years have brought for Hispanic women, who previously made up for much of the collapse among other groups. And while states with the very lowest growth are clustered largely in the West and Northeast, the 鈥渂irth dearth鈥� has now spread to every area of the country.

In New England, the nation鈥檚 hardest-hit region, local leaders increasingly feel the need to respond. The adjustment is leading Manchester to consider moves that will go much further than closing a single elementary school. At a special school board meeting last month, Superintendent John Goldhardt unveiled a plan the district鈥檚 three traditional high schools into one new building. Originally hired two years ago from Utah, one of the fastest-growing parts of the country, Goldhardt said in an interview that the city鈥檚 shifting demographics meant that urgent action was required.

鈥淲e are becoming grayer,鈥� he said. 鈥淚鈥檓 new to the state, but a lot of our high school and college graduates don’t stay, so the population as a whole is older. I’m not sure what is causing that, but I know that birth rates and family sizes are way down.”

Krajewski said she was waiting to hear more about the consolidation plan, and that she understands the challenge of maintaining aging facilities with fewer students. But that doesn鈥檛 take the sting out of losing a school where her father was a student decades ago, and where her niece now attends as a fifth-grader. As the academic year winds down, she is busy assembling the building鈥檚 130 years of institutional memory into one last yearbook.

鈥淚t’s really emotional for me because this is the final yearbook that Hallsville will ever have,鈥� she said. 鈥淎nd I’m grateful to be the one to help put it together for the students, but at the same time, it’s like, 鈥�This is gone.”

The Great Recession鈥檚 long hangover

The United States has historically been a kind of demographic unicorn, enjoying both world-leading levels of education and economic development while also posting year after year of comparatively high population growth. Even as international competitors like Europe and Japan had to cope with ever-worsening ratios of retirees to prime-age workers, America鈥檚 big families and relatively welcoming posture toward immigration made us the exception.

The long hangover of the Great Recession changed all that. Policymakers initially saw the drop in births beginning in 2008 as typical of a contractionary economy and likely to recover once catastrophic joblessness and uncertainty dissipated. But even a decade later, as the pre-pandemic labor market neared full employment, fertility continued to dwindle. All told, according to the calculations of demographer Kenneth Johnson, have been born over the last 13 years than would have arrived if 2007-era birth rates had continued.

Johnson, a professor at the University of New Hampshire鈥檚 Carsey School of Public Policy, said that the question in recent years has been whether those missing births were either delayed 鈥� by younger women who decided to start families later in life 鈥� or foregone entirely. Even before the pandemic, he noticed that fertility among older women, while steady, was not compensating for the lower numbers earlier in the decade; in its wake, he added, even fewer births are likely to follow.

鈥淚f you think about it, the women who delayed their births in their early 20s, who are now in their early 30s, may well have been planning to have babies about now,鈥� Johnson said. 鈥淏ut the latest data I鈥檝e seen [suggests] that one-third of women were planning to delay births because of COVID. If that’s the case, we’ve got another delay on top of the ones we’ve already seen.”

New Hampshire is a case in point: This year, it was that saw more deaths than births (13,511 vs. 11,773). That might not come as a total surprise in a year when COVID killed hundreds of thousands, but in New Hampshire, the trend actually dates back to 2017. The , most apparent in the rural precincts near the Canadian border, is also felt downstate, where transplants from Massachusetts and other New England states have often fled in search of more favorable tax rates.

Formerly an industrial capital that housed in the world, Manchester is as a 鈥淪ilicon Millyard.鈥� Its 112,000 residents make up the largest urban center in northern New England, but between 2007 and 2017, over 14 percent, from 1,664 to 1,423. At the same time, home prices throughout New Hampshire the pandemic-era run on real estate, in large measure due to more retirees choosing to 鈥渁ge in place,鈥� which prevents housing supply from turning over.

Krajewski, whose parents each came from families of nine or more children, argued that the climbing cost of childcare and prevalence of one-parent households have led more young people to have fewer children, or even abstain from parenthood altogether.

鈥淚t’s a very different dynamic than what it used to be when my dad went to elementary school, where the classes were bigger and there were more kids in general,鈥� she said. 鈥淚t’s not like that now. A lot of my friends only have one or two children; some of my friends don’t have any children and don’t want children.鈥�

Peter Lubelczyk is the principal of Jewett Street Elementary School, which will be of students displaced from Hallsville this fall. A former Jewett student himself, he pointed to the lack of young families as a key explanation for Manchester鈥檚 enrollment shortfalls.

鈥淭he neighborhood where I grew up, 50 or 60 percent of the neighbors are still there who were there when I was a kid,鈥� Lubelczyk said. 鈥淢y mother is still living in the house I was raised in, where she’s been for 50 years. I think there are a lot of families who stay in their homes for a long time because it’s their forever home. That older population in Manchester will definitely result in declining school populations.”

Families 鈥榝eeling the crunch鈥�

It would be one thing if decreasing birth cohorts simply meant smaller class sizes. But it鈥檚 not that simple: Every student lost to districts like Manchester also translates into fewer education dollars sent from legislators in Concord.

A major outlier in the northeast, New Hampshire has always been characterized by skepticism toward government. With no state taxes on wages or sales, it raises less revenue than its neighbors and ranks for per-pupil education aid dispensed by the state. According to from the New England Public Policy Center (a think tank affiliated with the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston), an average of 47 percent of K-12 education revenue in the 2015-16 school year came from state governments. In Vermont, the figure was much higher, 89 percent. In New Hampshire, just 33 percent of funding came from the state, with 61 percent coming from local taxpayers.

Bruce Mallory, a professor emeritus of education at UNH鈥檚 Carsey School and observer of New Hampshire schools for decades, has recently worked with studying education finance in the state. He said that the intense reliance on local revenues can make communities particularly sensitive to fluctuations in population size.

鈥淎 new housing development goes up in a small community, 50 new kids, and that puts huge strains on the school budget,鈥� Mallory observed. 鈥淭he reverse of that is, school populations decline, taxpayers ask, ‘How come our local education costs are staying flat or going up when the enrollment is down? We’re not going to pay for that!’鈥�

In an attempt to gain relief, Manchester voters on both property tax revenues and expenditures in 2009. That restriction can be overridden, and periodically has been to secure more money for schools. But between the smaller pot of funding and the relatively higher needs of local students 鈥� the district enrolls far more English learners and low-income pupils than is typical in New Hampshire, one of the highest-income states in the country 鈥� budgets are stretched thin. One , commissioned last year from the American Institutes for Research by the state panel studying education finance, estimated that Manchester schools were underfunded by 鈥渁lmost $10,000 per student.鈥�

Nicole Leapley was elected to the local school board in 2019. This May, petitioning for reforms to the state鈥檚 funding policies, and in an interview, described the status quo as 鈥渁nti-young-people.鈥�

鈥淭he whole playing field is set up in a way that really doesn’t support families,鈥� she said. 鈥淚f our population is growing, it’s mostly people saying, ‘Oh, I’d like to retire to the seacoast.’ But I think families are feeling the crunch and probably are being driven away.”

One of the most significant signs of strain is the state of the district鈥檚 building stock. According to the capacity review released last year, Manchester schools currently face $158 million in deferred maintenance and capital improvement costs 鈥� the result of buildings like Hallsville, which have been in use long after their typical lifecycle was spent. Superintendent Goldhardt said that the price tag for renovation could be much greater than the cost of building new schools.

“Some may say, ‘I’m okay with this old, shabby building that we’re paying a lot of money for, and that we’re going to have to pour millions into,鈥欌�� he said. 鈥淏ut eventually, it’s like the old car: You can only replace the radiator so many times before the bottom falls out, and you can’t drive it anymore because the floor’s rusted out. The same thing happens to school buildings.鈥�

That realization is part of what鈥檚 driving the push to combine the district鈥檚 three traditional high schools into one newly built structure (a fourth, a career and vocational school, would be moved to one of the vacated buildings). The proposal is also a concession to numbers: Not only are the existing high schools aging, they also collectively enroll 1,500 fewer students than they have capacity for. Board members the plan 鈥� which also includes converting all middle schools into magnet programs and introducing a French language immersion system at one of the city鈥檚 remaining elementary schools 鈥� at a public Zoom meeting convened in May. But if enacted, it would be the biggest shakeup Manchester schools have seen in decades.

In an email, Mallory said the steps being considered were 鈥渋ndications of the stress that all [New Hampshire] districts are under.鈥� If the status quo is maintained, he added, other areas 鈥渨ill also be closing or consolidating buildings in addition to cutting back staff and reducing supports for students most in need. That is, the budget and education program situation for such schools will only get worse.鈥�

In the meantime, Hallsville elementary will end operations fairly quickly. Kym Prive, a parent who has sent three children to the school, said that even families without students currently enrolled have been saddened by the move to close a neighborhood institution. More poignant still is the fact that students lost most of the school鈥檚 last year to remote classes necessitated by COVID.

“We want to make it memorable for them, which is hard. Even looking at the yearbook, there aren’t as many pictures from this year of them in school. We’re hoping to be able to still do a good end-of-year send-off for everyone, since it’ll be the end of Hallsville altogether.”

Lead art by 蜜桃影视’s Meghan Gallagher (Getty Images)